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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Scholarship at Penn Libraries Penn Libraries 9-1996 "Dust and Ashes": The Funeral and Forgetting of Sabato Morais Arthur Kiron University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/library_papers Part of the Jewish Studies Commons Recommended Citation Kiron, A. (1996). "Dust and Ashes": The Funeral and Forgetting of Sabato Morais. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/library_papers/69 Suggested Citation: Kiron, Arthur. (1996). "Dust and Ashes": The Funeral and Forgetting of Sabato Morais. American Jewish History. Vol. 84(3). p. 155-188. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/library_papers/69 For more information, please contact [email protected]. "Dust and Ashes": The Funeral and Forgetting of Sabato Morais Keywords Jews, Biography, Death and Burial Disciplines Arts and Humanities | Jewish Studies Comments Suggested Citation: Kiron, Arthur. (1996). "Dust and Ashes": The Funeral and Forgetting of Sabato Morais. American Jewish History. Vol. 84(3). p. 155-188. This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/library_papers/69 "Dust and Ashes": The Funeral and Forgetting of Sabato Morais· ARTHUR KIRON Who were those hundreds and thousands that crowded Fifth Street this afternoon for entire squares from side to side, leaving just room enough for the cars to pass? Who were those hundreds whose weary feet traveled the distance from Fifth and Green to Twelfth and Federal streets? A guard of honor it was which kings might envy. Who were they?] Sabato Morais remains something of a riddle to students of nineteenth­ century American Jewish history, just as the phenomenon of his thou­ sands of mourners baffled observers at his funeral in November I897.2 .. This essay was originally submitted for a Colloquium on American Jewish History conducted by Professor Arthur Aryeh Goren at Columbia University, Spring, 1995. Special thanks to Arthur Aryeh Goren, and to Maria Baader, Arnold M. Eisen, Abraham J. Karp and Jonathan Karp for their close readings of earlier drafts. Many thanks to Congregation Mikveh Israel and the National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, PA for their kindness and help during an earlier stage of this project's research. I am especially grateful to the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, particularly David M. Goldenberg, Associate Director of the Center and Aviva Astrinsky, Director of the Library at the Center, for giving me the opportunity to work with the Sabato Morais Papers. The following abbreviations have been used: AH, The American Hebrew; AJA, American Jewish Archives; AJH, American Jewish History; qs, Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania; DAB, Dictionary of American Biography; DHL, Doctor of Hebrew Literature; EJ, Encyclopedia Judaica; HUC, Hebrew Union College; IHL, Sabato Morais, Italian Hebrew Literature; JE, Jewish Encyclopedia; JQR, Jewish Quar­ terly Review; JTSA, Jewish Theological Seminary of America; LBIYB, Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook; M I, Mikveh Israel; OCC, The Occident and American Jewish Advocate; PAAJR, Publications of the American Academy of Jewish Research; PAJHS, Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society; PJAC, Philadelphia Jewish Archives Center; PJE, Philadelphia Jewish Exponent; SM, Sabato Morais; UJE, Universal Jewish Encyclope­ dia; YU, Yeshiva University. 1. Marcus Jastrow, PJE, November 19, 1897, 6. Edwin Wolf 2nd estimates the Philadelphia Jewish community grew from approximately 15,000 in 1880 to 70,000 in 1904. See Edwin Wolf 2nd, "By the People and for the People," typescript history of the Federation of Jewish Charities, PJAC, 21, cited in Robert Tabak, "Orthodox Judaism in Transition," in Jewish Life in Philadelphia: 1830-1940, ed. Murray Friedman (Philadel­ phia, 1983),48 and 318, n. 1. Cf. the figures listed in Jacob Rader Marcus, To Count a People: American Jewish Population Data, 1585-1984 (Lanham, 1990), 194: 40,000 in 189°,75,000 in 1900. 2. Morais' dates of birth andlor death have sometimes been misstated. He was born on Sunday, April 13, 1823 (2 Iyar 5583) in Livorno and died on Thursday, November II, 156 A MER I CAN JEW ISH HIS TOR Y A. Kiron: The Funeral and Forgetting of Sabato Morais 157 We know the rough outlines of Morais' life,3 just as his contemporaries, of course, knew the identity of the immigrant Eastern European Jewish amerike . .. on sofek" {"without doubt ... the greatest of all orthodox masses who lost a day's pay to attend his burial that rainy Monday rabbis in the United States"),s has become almost invisible in standard afternoon in Philadelphia.4 But the Italian-born Morais, who two years accounts of the American Jewish past. As the centenary of his death after his death was memorialized by Kasriel Sarasohn's Orthodox New approaches, this neglect is all the more surprising, given the statement by York Yudishe Gazeten as "der grester fun ale ortodoksishe rabonim in Cyrus Adler, one of American jewry's most visible public figures in the early twentieth century, that "to the Jews of England, France, Italy, and the Orient, [Morais] was the representative American Jew."6 The New 1897 (16 Marheshvan 5898). According to the morning edition of the (Philadelphia) Public York Times remembered Morais as "the most eminent rabbi in this Ledger, Friday, November 12, 1897, the PJE, November 19, 1897, and the account of his country . a powerful and aggressive factor in discussions of vast son Henry S. Morais, a founder and editor of the PJE, who apparently was present at the import and interest to millions of people; a deep, incisive, fearless time of his death, Morais suffered a stroke Wednesday evening, November 10, lapsed into a coma for approximately twenty-two hours, awoke briefly and finally died of a massive thinker, speaker, and writer."7 Moshe Davis declared in 1947, fifty years brain seizure shortly before 6:00 p.m., Thursday, November II, 1897. His funeral service after Morais' death, that "a volume on Sabato Morais, his life and times, occurred the following Monday, November 15, at 2:00 p.m. is a desideratum in American Jewish history."8 Despite this high 3. See the biographical information and memorial tributes specially prepared after estimation of Morais by his contemporaries and by Davis, the call for Morais' death for the PJE and AH, November 19, 1897. For guides to the primary and secondary sources, see Dianne Ashton, The Philadelphia Group: A Guide to Archival and such a publication went unanswered. In a recent survey of scholarly Bibliographic Collections (Philadelphia, 1993); Moshe Davis, "Sabato Morais: Selected and Annotated Bibliography of his Writings," PAJHS 37 (1947): 55-93; Arthur Kiron, "Sabato Morais Papers Finding Aid" (CjS, 1992). Since Morais' death, a handful of 56; Judah David Eisenstein, Otsar Zikhronotai, Part I (New York, 1929), 20; Alex J. reminiscences, brief biographical sketches, articles and two unpublished theses have Goldman, The Greatest Rabbis Hall of Fame: A Who's Who of Distinguished American appeared. In particular, see Henry Samuel Morais, Sabato Morais: A Memoir (New York, Rabbis (New York, 1987),99-114; Henry S. Morais, The Jews of Philadelphia (Philadel­ 189 8) [reprinted from the Proceedings of the Sixth Biennial Convention of the Jewish phia, 1894), 59-63; Pamela Susan Nadell, Conservative Judaism in America: A Biographi­ Theological Seminary Association (New York, 1898)]. For a collection of reminiscences cal Dictionary and Sourcebook (New York, 1988), 190-93; Abraham A. Neuman, read on the occasion of the centenary of Morais' birth (1823-1923), see William Rosenau, "Morais, Sabato," UJE 7 (1942): 638-40; Jack Riemer, "Morais, Sabato," EJ 12 (1971): "Sabato Morais-An Appreciation of the Centenary of His Birth"; Marvin Nathan, 294-95; Solomon Solis-Cohen, "Necrology," PAJHS 8 (1900): 149-50; Cyrus L. Sulzberger, "Discussion," in Central Conference of American Rabbis Yearbook 33 (1923): 35 6-74; "Morais, Sabato," JE 8 (1904): 679-81. Commemoration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the birth of The Reverend Doctor 4. For a colorful description of immigrant Jewish life in Philadelphia around this time, Sabato Morais by the Congregation Mikveh Israel, Wednesday Evening, April 18, 192 3 see "Jewish Immigrant Life in Philadelphia, From The Sunday Mercury, August 10, 1890," (Philadelphia, 1924). Other reminiscences include Cyrus Adler, "Semi-Centennial Ad­ reprinted in AJA 9 (April 1957): 32-42. For background on the Philadelphia Jewish dress," and Joseph H. Hertz, "Sabato Morais-A Pupil's Tribute," in The Jewish community during the second half of the nineteenth century, see Morais, Jews of Theological Seminary Semi-Centennial Volume, ed. Cyrus Adler (New York, 1939), 5-6; Philadelphia; Murray Friedman, ed ., Jewish Life in Philadelphia, 1830-1940 (Philadel­ 46-48. For the two theses, see Max Samuel Nussenbaum, "Sabato Morais: Champion of phia, 1983); Maxwell Whiteman, "Philadelphia's Jewish Neighborhoods," in The Peoples Orthodoxy" (D. H. L., Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University, 1964) and of Philadelpha: A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-Class Life, 1790-1940, eds. Allen Ruth Alpers, "Traditionalism, Americanization, and Assimilation: The Struggles of Sabato F. Davis and Mark H. Heller (Philadelphia, 1973), 231-54, and additional Yiddish Morais, 1851-1897" (rabbinic thesis, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, sources, 251, n. 10. 1994). For articles about Morais, see Alan D. Corre, "Sabato Morais and Social Justice in 5. Yudishe Gazeten ("The Jewish Gazette"), Pesah blat ("Passover Issue"), March 24, Philadelphia, 1858-1897," in The Quest for Social Justice: The Morris Fromkin Memorial 1899, 12. I am grateful to Rabbi Abraham J. Karp for bringing this rare source to my Lectures, ed. Alan D. Corre (Milwaukee, 1992), 19-35; Moshe Davis, "Shabbtai Morais: attention. A copy of this issue can be found in the Abraham and Deborah Karp Collection toldotav, de'otav u-fe'ulotav," in Sefer ha-shanah li-yehude amerikah, ed.
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